Hundreds of children celebrate reading, receive free books for Holidays

Cat in the Hat’ greets a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School student during the National Day of

Hundreds of children celebrate reading, receive free books for Holidays

Local National Day of Action featured award-winning broadway actors, Cat in the Hat, elected officials, community leaders and teachers

LAUDERHILL, FL — Recently Broadway actors, ‘Cat in the Hat,’elected officials, and community leaders shared their love for reading and gave hundreds of First Book (www.firstbook.org) reading books to students and instructional resources to teachers at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in Lauderhill.

Just in time for the holidays, hundreds of five to 10-year-old elementary students received free Dr. Seuss’ reading books during an all school assembly that promoted the importance of literacy and featured Broadway actors (www.browardserves.org), ‘Cat in the Hat,’ School Board (www.browardschools.com) and City of Lauderhill (lauderhill-fl.gov) elected officials, and numerous community groups, including leaders from the Broward County Council of PTAs (www.browardptsa.org) and Children’s Council of Broward County (www.cscbroward.org).

The new free online instructional resource for teachers and support staff, Share My Lesson provided a community education grant to the Broward Teachers Union to help pay for the children’s books. During the activity, the schools’ teachers received free Share My Lesson (www.sharemylesson.com) materials designed to increase student-reading levels. SML is an innovative website where educators can come together to share their very best teaching resources such as core curriculum aligned lesson plans.

The Fort Lauderdale reading activity is just one of 60 events that took taking place in major cities across the United States on Monday, Dec. 9 as part of the National Day of Action, which is co-sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers (www.aft.org) and National Education Association (www.nea.org).

In addition to the NEA and AFT, other national organizations sponsoring the National Day of Action included the Alliance for Educational Justice, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, the Gamaliel Network, the Journey for Justice Alliance, the Leadership Center for the Common Good, and National Opportunity to Learn Campaign.